Tip for one of those slightly-awkward conference situations

Here’s a situation that came up at the 360 iDev conference: at the end of Colin Donnell’s presentation, other developers from the audience came up to talk about the design of their apps.

But it’s supposed to be informative and interesting, not a sales pitch, right? Absolutely. So everybody feels just a little awkward at that moment.

So here’s what to do: if you’re a developer showing off your app, start off by saying that everybody in the room who wants a promo code can have one. Just see you after and give you a card or scrawled-on-a-napkin email address or whatever.

That takes the sales-y thing out of the room. All good.

And it might not hurt that the people who then get free copies tell their friends about how it’s a cool app — which they’re more likely to do since they’ve heard you talk about it and explain it, and they’ve seen your passion for what you do.